The Rhetoric of Jihad in Nahjul-Balaghah: A Neo-Aristotelian Critique of Imam Ali’s (PBUH) War Sermons

Document Type : Scientific-Research Article

Authors
1 Professor of Culture and Communications, Department of Cultural Studies and Communications, Baqir al-Olum University, Qom, Iran.
2 Assistant professor, Department of Social Sciences, Baqir al-Olum University, Qom, Iran.
3 PhD student in Culture and Communication, Department of Cultural Studies and Communications, Baqir al-Olum University, Qom, Iran
Abstract
Nahjul-Balaghah, as one of the most prominent rhetorical and literary works of Islam, contains the war sermons of Imam Ali delivered in critical and sensitive historical situations. These sermons are not only important from a literary and aesthetic perspective, but also, as outstanding examples of persuasive rhetoric in the context of war and jihad, have the capacity for deep rhetorical analysis. Despite extensive interpretative and literary studies, a comprehensive and systematic analysis of the war sermons of Nahjul-Balaghah using the method of the Neo-Aristotelian Critique has not been conducted so far. The purpose of analyzing the rhetoric of jihad in Nahjul-Balaghah using the approach of the Neo-Aristotelian Critique is to discover the rhetorical mechanisms of Imam Ali in dealing with war situations and to identify the argumentative, validation, and emotional arousal patterns in these sermons. Using purposive sampling, eighteen sermons were selected from 241 sermons in Nahjul-Balaghah and analyzed based on the components of the rhetorical situation (speaker, audience, context) and the elements of ancient rhetoric (invention, order, style). The results show that in the logos dimension, the Imam used a wide range of omitted analogies, including similes, conditional, religious, and historical analogies. In the domain of ethos, credibility has evolved from situational expertise to credibility based on behavioral honesty, and in pathos, emotions have shifted from hope and motivation to anger, regret, and despair. Stylistic analysis identified 112 literary devices in ten categories, with simile, metaphor, and contrast being the most frequent. The most important achievement is the mapping of the temporal evolution of rhetoric from “hopeful persuasion” (36-37 AH) to “realistic reproach” (38 AH) and “moral despair” (39-40 AH).
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Black, C C. (1995). Rhetorical criticism. in Hearing the New Testament: Strategies for Interpretation. ed. J. B. Green. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
Brigance, William Norwood ed., A History and Criticism of American Public Address, 2 vols. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1943). A third volume was published in 1955: Marie Kathryn Hochmuth, ed., A History and Criticism of American Public Address, III (New York: Longmans, Green, 1955).
Brock, B. L. & Scott, R. L. (Eds.). (1980). Methods of rhetorical criticism: A twentieth-century perspective (2nd ed.). Wayne State University Press.
Brock, B.L., Scott, L. & Chesebro, J.W. (1990). Methods of Rhetorical Criticism. A Twentieth-century Perspective. Third edition, revised. Detroit: Wayne State University.
Bryant, Donald C. (1958), ed., The Rhetorical Idiom: Essays in Rhetoric, Oratory, Language, and Drama (Ithaca: Cornell University Press), 5.
Burke, Kenneth. (1969). A Rhetoric of Motives. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Cathcart, Robert. (1966). Post Communication: Criticism and Evaluation. Indianapolis: Bobbs- Merrill.
Cox, Robert. (2010). Environnmental Communication and Public Sphere. Los Angeles: Sage Publication.
Foss, Sonja K. (2018). Rhetorical criticism: Exploration and practice (5th ed.). Waveland Press.
Herbert A. Wichelns (1980). “The Literary Criticism of Oratory,” in Studies in Rhetoric and Public Speaking in Honor of James A. Winans, ed. A. M. Drummond (New York: Century, 1925), 181–216. A more accessible source for the essay is Herbert A. Wichelns, “The Literary Criticism of Oratory,” in Methods of Rhetorical Criticism: A Twentieth-Century Perspective, ed. Bernard L. Brock and Robert L. Scott, 2nd ed. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1980), 40–73.
Kennedy, George Alexander (1994). A New History of Classical Rhetoric. New Jersey: Princeton UP.
Klyn, Mark S. (1968). “Toward a Pluralistic Rhetorical Criticism,” in Essays on Rhetorical Criticism, ed. Thomas R. Nilsen (New York: Random House, 1968), 154.
Mohrmann, G. P. & Michael C. (1974). Leff point out that neo-Aristotelianism itself does not preclude the study of discourse larger than a single speech; in fact, Aristotle discusses oratorical genres deliberative or political speaking, forensic or legal speaking, and epideictic or ceremonial speaking. The notion of genres was not incorporated into the neo-Aristotelian approach because of Wichelns’s determination that the purpose of rhetorical criticism was to uncover effects on the specific audience. See G. P. Mohrmann and Michael C. Leff, “Lincoln at Cooper Union: A Rationale for Neo-Classical Criticism,” Quarterly Journal of Speech, (60), 463.
Thonssen, Lester & Baird, Craig (1948). Speech Criticism. New York: Ronald.
Wendland, E. R. (2002). Aspects of Rhetorical Analysis Applied to New Testament texts. In Handbook of early Christianity: Social science approaches.ed. Blasi, A J. Duhaime, J & Turcotte P-A. Walnut Creek: Altamira Press: 169-195.
Wichelns, Herbert.   A. (1925). The Literary Criticism of Oratory, in Studies in Rhetoric and Public Speaking in Honor of James A. Winans, ed. A. M. Drummond (New York: Century, 181–216.
 
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